An Affirmation of the Divine-Human Personality of the Person of Christ;

Transcription

1 An Affirmation of the Divine-Human Personality of the Person of Christ; His Human I and Human Will, With a Note on His Impeccability Second Edition Revised and Augmented Roy A. Huebner PTP Present Truth Publishers 274 East Veterans Highway Jackson NJ USA Made and Printed in the USA Second Edition, Revised & Augmented May 2007 Website: presenttruthpublishers.com

2 Table of Contents Part 1: Affirmation of the Divine-Human Personality of the Person of Christ Introduction... 1 T. H. Reynolds and F. E. Raven s Denial of the Lord s Human Personality... 3 T. H. Reynold s Formula... 3 Affirmation of Human Personality in Christ by J. N. Darby... 4 The Lord Jesus Is a Human Being... 4 What Is Really Denied Is Christ s Individuality as a Man... 4 In Christ There Is Both Divine and Human Nature... 5 The Conscious I Is Personality... 5 The Lord Has Human Personality -- Human I (Ego)... 5 Christ Here Personally as Man... 7 Man Taken into Union with God in One Person... 7 He Took Our Nature... 7 Christ s Humanity Is of its Own Order: Sinless, Impeccable, and in Christ s Person... 8 The Person Is Not Changed... 9 Discussing the Person of Christ What Is the Issue in Discussions of the Person of Christ? The Lord s Human Will Expressed in Gethsemene Every Word, Work, and Way of the Lord Jesus Had a Divine Spring Affirmation of Human Personality in Christ by F. E. Raven s Opposers J. Hennessy W. T. Whybrow G. J. Stewart Theo Davis Anonymous W. Kelly F. W. Grant P. A. Humphreys A. C. Ord No Two Distinct (Separate), or Dual, Personalities in Christ Part 2: Denial of Human Personality in the Man Christ Jesus is a Form of Apollinarianism No One Knows Who the Son Is On the False Notion of No Human Personality in Christ: Anhypostasia Dr. Phillip Schaff a Denier of Human Personality in Christ Divine-Human Personality in Christ Avoids Both Nestorianism and Apollinarianism Christ s Reasonable Soul, Two Centers of Consciousness, and One Self-consciousness An Anhypostasia View W. G. T. Shedd s Rejection of the False Use of This One Self-Consciousness of the Anhypostasia View J. N. Darby s Rejection of the Anhypostasia View The Anhypostasia View Is Apollinarian-ish Apollinarius View F. E. Raven an Apollinarian T. H. Reynold s Apollinarian-ish View Some Additional Affirmations of Human Personality in Christ s Person A. A. Hodge s True View on Christ s Person Robert L. Dabney L. Berkhof Rejects Human Impersonality in Christ Emory H. Bancroft William G. T. Shedd Benjamin B. Warfield William Cunningham Augustus H. Strong Comments by A. B. Bruce on The Prevailing Reformed View Conclusion Appendix 1: Extracts from A. C. Ord Concerning the Unity of the Two Natures in Christ as Expressed in Scripture Appendix 2: The Impeccability of Christ s Person Recommended Reading Concerning Ravenism Available from Present Truth Publishers * * * * * NOTE: Thanks are due Dennis P. Ryan for helpful editorial suggestions.

3 Part 1: An Affirmation of the Divine-Human Personality of the Person of Christ IntroductionChristians do say that Christ is God and man in one Person. However, what some believe concerning the meaning of man in that sentence varies, from what is truth to what is fundamentally evil teaching. Christians say that Christ s manhood is spirit, soul, and body. That is true. But some may not understand that man s soul has will and I -- an I of identity. Christ s having a human soul means just that -- a human soul with human will and human I. Yet Christ is one Person. How this can be so is not within human capability to understand. But in an attempt to bring the person of Christ within human ability to explain and to understand the union of the divine and human in Him, fundamentally evil teachings have been taught. Human personality has to do with human I. That human I has human will. In the garden, the Lord Jesus prayed: not my will, but thine be done. There was the expression of the human my and the human will -- but not, of course, apart from what He is as God, for all is said in accordance with that inscrutable unity of His Person as the God-man. Every word, work, and expression had a divine spring in it. 1 I think all Christians can accept by faith these Scripture facts about Christ without thinking that they have to be explained; i.e., without knowing how this can be in one Person. They can believe that Christ is God in Person and that He is man in Person. By the human personality of the Lord Jesus is meant that He had a human spirit, a human soul, a human will, and human I (meaning human ego), and a human body; i.e., that He is fully man. The result of denying that the Christ had human will and human I is, in effect, to assert an incomplete manhood in Christ; i.e., an impersonal humanity in Christ. To have a soul without personal I and will would be incomplete manhood. Such was not our Beloved. The truth is that being fully man does not make Him two persons. The incarnation prevented that from being the case. The Son took humanity into His Person so that there is one Person, though there be two natures, the divine and every faculty in His humanity obeyed, and was the instrument of the impulse the divine will gave to it (Collected Writings of J. N. Darby 16:28). See more on this, ibid., 15: the human. He is fully God and fully man in one Person. The human mind cannot fathom this wonderful truth. Nor is there some analogy by which it may be explained. Human mental analysis may say, that cannot be: therefore there was no human spirit and soul (Apollinarianism) held by J. B. Stoney, F. E. Raven, C. A. Coates, James Taylor, Sr., and the Glantonite James Boyd, at least in the last five years of his life. On the other hand, human mental analysis in divine matters may admit the two wills and two I s and say, there cannot be one Person, so there must be two distinct persons (Nestorianism). But human mental analysis in this matter may say: yes, there was a human spirit and a human soul, but there was not both divine I and human I (two I s) and two wills in Christ, a human will and a divine will (this denial of two wills in Christ is Monothelitism). 2 Subjection to the Word shows that there was human personality in Christ: spirit, soul, body, human will, and human I, yet one Person (Orthodoxy), without pretending competency to comprehend or explain how this can be. 2. Here is a description of Monothelitism from The New Schaff-Herzog Religious Encyclopedia: Closely connected with Monophysitism was Monothelitism (see Monothelites), or the doctrine that Christ had but one will, as he had but one person. The orthodox maintained that will is an attribute of nature, rather than of person, and consequently that Christ had two wills -- a human will and a divine will -- both working in harmony. The Monothelite controversy lasted from 633 to 680. The Emperor Heradius proposed a compromise formula -- one divine-human energy (mia theandrik energeia); but it was opposed in the West. The sixth ecumenical council condemned the Monothelite heresy, and repeated the Chalcedonian Creed, with the following supplement concerning the two wills (cf. Schaff, Creeds, ii ): And we likewise preach two natural wills in him [Jesus Christ], and two natural operations undivided, inconvertible, inseparable, unmixed, according to the doctrine of the holy Fathers; and the two natural wills [are] not contrary (far from it), as the impious heretics assert, but his human will follows the divine will, and is not resisting or reluctant, but rather subject to his divine and omnipotent will. For it was proper that the will of the flesh should be moved, but be subjected to the divine will, according to the wise Athanasius. The same council condemned Pope Honorius I. ( ) as a Monothelite heretic, and his successors confirmed its decision. Monothelitism continued among the Maronites on Mount Lebanon, who, however, afterward submitted to the Roman Church, as well as among the Monophysites, who are all Monothelites. Monothelitism is leaven concerning the Person of Christ and requires separation from any evil fellowship that tolerates it. However, this will be resisted and rather than to separate from the evil, the messenger will be attacked, denounced, and accused of heresy, particularly of Nestorianism.

4 T. H. Reynolds and F. E. Raven s Denial of the Lord s Human Personality It bears repeating that the manhood of Christ means that He had a human spirit, and a human soul -- with human will, and human I (ego) -- and a human body. This the Son took into His Person in the incarnation. F. E. Raven (FER) and his supporter, T. H. Reynolds (THR) denied human personality in Christ. Whatever else they denied concerning His Person, they denied that Christ had human I (ego). 3 This denial is fundamentally evil. Those that refused fellowship with FER held that Christ did indeed have a human will and human I, else He would not be man. Such manhood would be an imagined manhood, without human personality, thus not really human. Of course, in Christ s manhood there was not taint of, nor tendency to, sin, for He held humanity in a holy state, not in innocency as in Adam s unfallen state. It is possible that THR was not an Apollinarian (denying Christ had a human soul and spirit). But he certainly did deny human I in Christ. After observing T. H. Reynolds denial of Christ s human I, we will consider some statements by the opposers of FER and THR, asserting the human personhood of Christ. 4 T. H. Reynold s Formula J. Hennessy pointed out this: In the Synopsis {written by J. N. Darby} we read, His complete person (5, 18). 5 Let the reader note the presentation of the Lord s divine person on earth, assuming to be what he was not, according to these teachers, who deny to Him a human I. T.H.R. wrote (Letter of December 3 rd, 1895, circulated in Dublin): The blessed Lord could say I as God -- before Abraham was I am. He could say I as Man -- I will put my trust in Him (God), but when we ask who was the conscious I the answer is, the Son of God speaking as Man on earth. Thus the blessed Lord is represented as personating a human I!!... Where is the Man Christ Jesus in this I? This is F.E.R. and T.H.R. s Christ! The doctrine involves the denial of Jesus Christ come in 3. I have dealt with FER s Apollinarian doctrine in The Eternal Relationships in the Godhead. 4. In the first edition I had said that THR denied human will in Christ. This is not certain though his denial of human personality is certain. 5. {Synopsis 5:12; also Collected Writings of J. N. Darby 29:101.} 3 4 the flesh (2 John 2:7), for it denies Him to be a perfect human person. 6 This statement in the letter by THR is quoted also in N. Noel s History where he condemned it, writing: That Christ was God, possessing an impersonal humanity, became the Christ of Mr. Raven, as well as of his lieutenants. 7 Affirmation of Human Personality in Christ by J. N. Darby THE LORD JESUS IS A HUMAN BEING He was really and truly a human being. 8 Of course He was a human being. He is the man Christ Jesus (1 Tim. 2:5). WHAT IS REALLY DENIED IS CHRIST S INDIVIDUALITY AS A MAN Let us emphasize this heading:... the moment you deny personality in the man Christ Jesus, you run into a thousand difficulties and errors. What is really denied is Christ s individuality as a man An Answer to... What is Ravenism? pp. 22, The History of the Brethren 2: Synopsis 3: Collected Writings of J. N. Darby 29:212. In replying to the evil Apollinarian doctrine held by F. E. Raven, that in Person He is God, in condition (i.e., not in Person) He is man, A. C. Ord wrote: To insist upon Christ s individuality as a man, is not to teach two individualities, nor does the simple faith that Jesus was God and Man in one person in any sense involve a dual personality. In Him Godhead and Manhood are united in His holy Person; God in person and Man in person; yet but one Person -- the Christ, who is over all, God blessed forever ( The Man Christ Jesus 1 Timothy 2:5, Remarks on a Tract Entitled The Person of the Christ, available from Present Truth Publishers). FER s doctrine of Christ means that Christ had no human soul and spirit. In his view the Son filled the place of the human soul and spirit and was thus the spirit of the body. A. C. Ord likened this, quite correctly, to a gem being placed in a casket. Thus, in FER s scheme, there really is no union of the human and divine in the Person of Christ. Of course, there being no human soul, there was no human will and no human I, the supporting idea being that if there were, then Christ would be two persons (Nestorianism). A. C. Ord wrote: It {FER s teaching} allows only that He is a Divine Person in human condition as opposed to person (ibid., p. 5). When we speak of some person, we cannot deduce from that how the incarnation could be, or how the union of the human and the divine in Him is. Yet, He is one Person, though God and man. How (continued...)

5 5 6 Denying that the Lord had a human will and human I is denying Christ s individuality as a man. Without that human will and human I there is no true manhood -- the man Christ Jesus. IN CHRIST THERE IS BOTH DIVINE AND HUMAN NATURE If there is the divine and human nature in Him, there is only one Person. 10 There is no human nature without a human will and a human I. These are in the soul. THE CONSCIOUS I IS PERSONALITY It is true concerning humanity that: As regards personality, the conscious I is personality THE LORD HAS HUMAN PERSONALITY -- HUMAN I (EGO) But as I am on this point, I add, they have no true Christ at all. I read, How such human nature, as body, soul, and spirit, including a human will, could be held in personal union with the divine, so that this humanity was complete, without a human personality or ego, 12 we cannot understand, but we believe it is a mystery revealed for faith. Where? Why does the blessed Lord say, Not my will but thine? Why does He say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? if there was no ego, no human personality? Why does Hebrews quote, will I sing praise, and will put my trust in him, behold I and the children which God hath given me, if there was no I (ego )? Why does He say, My God and your God, my Father and your Father (not our), if there was no personality? * And this last remark, that Christ never says our with His disciples, I borrow from a European minister of some note, thoroughly imbued with the German system, where it is at home, not borrowed, and itself spoiled, as it is at Mercersburg. And this last statement, that Christ had no human personality, no ego, 13 which is really heresy (though God and man were united in one person), and the mere folly of man attempting to fathom the mystery of His Person, when He has said, No man knoweth the Son, but the Father, is found in the article of one by no means the 9. (...continued) the human entered into the Person of the Son we cannot know, but it is the fact. And that humanity is body, soul, and spirit; and that soul has a human will. Since our Lord Jesus has a human soul, there is human I ( human ego), and human will. Without this there would have been no true manhood, no human personality. 10. Letters of J. N. Darby 3: Collected Writings of J. N. Darby 32: {Take note that JND is refuting the idea that Christ had no human I. } 13. {Take note that JND equates the human personality of Christ with having an ego, i.e., an I..} worst of their doctors. 14 * I am quite aware of and accept the ordinary orthodox statement of two natures in one person, 15 though what was at first insisted on as orthodox as to upostasis was afterwards condemned, and the meaning of the word changed; but the statements quoted in the text are really Monothelite. It shows the danger of those early discussions, for the simple faith that Jesus was God and man in one Person can be easily accepted as plain and vital truth; but the moment you deny personality in the man Christ Jesus, you run into a thousand difficulties and errors. What is really denied is Christ s individuality as a man, as it is in terms elsewhere {emphasis added}. So, JND affirmed that Christ had human personality, human ego, i.e. I, and also rejected Monothelitism. Who is going to charge him with being a Nestorian? We see the same rejection of Monothelitism in his reply to Mr. Sen: Mr. Sen s statements are old workings of the human mind mixed up, as was not unnatural, with Hindoo pantheism. As to Christ it is what was in early Christianity called Monothelism, or really the Monophysite heresy -- one will, or one nature I do not at all suppose Mr. Sen borrowed these ideas -- probably knew nothing of them; but they show the same workings of the human mind. Our business is with the Person of the Lord. 17 CHRIST HERE PERSONALLY AS MAN 14. Collected Writings of J. N. Darby 29: {Later, some of the orthodox on the subject of the two natures will be quoted.} 16. {It should be clear that JND refers to Mr. Sen s view as Monothelism and the Monophysite heresy, which JND rejects. That is, JND rejects the idea that there was only one will in Christ.} 17. Notes and Comments 2:278. Eastern Christendom was always discussing points, Rome pushing its power. In the East they got a new point, on which it is surely not my purpose to dwell here: -- Christ had only one will, or at any rate His divine and human will coalesced, though He had two natures (Collected Writings 22:145. See also p. 86). Here again JND rejects the idea of only one will in Christ. Andrew Miller gave a concise statement of the issue in the Monothelite heresy:... the so-called Monothelite controversy, may be described generally as a revival, under a somewhat different form, of the old Monophysite, or Eutychian, heresy... The Monophysites denied the distinction of the two natures in Christ; the Monothelites, on the other hand, denied the distinction of the will, divine and human, in the blessed Lord (Miller s Church History, Addison: Bible Truth Publishers, pp. 340, 341, 1980 reprint). For some detail on these controversies, see The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge 7: ; Phillip Schaff, History of the Christian Church 4: , The Doctrine of the Two Wills in Christ ; and for exhaustive detail, see I. A. Dorner, History of the Development of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ 3: Dr. Schaff is unsound on our Lord s human personality.

6 He is made flesh, is full of grace and truth as a living Person down here as a Man, and of this have we all received. The former part was nature, witness, and how received; this fulness communicable as a source to others, and the Object of their faith, declaring God, withal the only-begotten Son as in the bosom of the Father. This is important in John, for while showing He was I AM, yet we always find Christ personally as Man, the recipient of all from God MANHOOD TAKEN INTO UNION WITH GOD IN ONE PERSON He who had this place {as eternal Son} with the Father was made flesh -- God s delight down here, God manifest in flesh; grace to man, grace in man, man taken into union with God in one person The union of man and God is the sole prerogative of the Word made flesh. It is incarnation, and that is true of none but Him. And when the Word was made flesh, it was in a divinely ordered and miraculous way, He was conceived by the Holy Ghost so that that born of the virgin was a holy thing, true flesh and blood surely, but untainted by sin. And this is true now of no other humanity. All are born in sin, and there is no question of any union or reunion with God, nor is the idea in any way scriptural, nor is there union with the Lord in incarnation. He was among them "the holy thing;" but He was alone, God and man in one person, but not united to men, to sinful corrupt man; but, having miraculously-formed sinless manhood in His own person. The union with Godhead was now, for the first time, and only here the union of Godhead and manhood in one Person. 21 A wondrous and blessed thought! He who had this place with the Father was made flesh -- God's delight down here, God manifest in flesh; grace to man, grace in man, man taken into union with God in one person -- the pledge of peace on earth HE TOOK OUR NATURE He did not take sinful flesh but was in likeness of flesh of sin (Rom. 8:3). He had humanity in a holy state (Luke 1:35). In Heb. 2:14 we read: Since therefore the children partake of flesh and blood, he also, in like 18. Notes and Comments 5:179. Emphasis has been added. 19. Collected Writings of J. N. Darby 30: Collected Writings of J. N. Darby 15: Collected Writings of J. N. Darby 29: Collected Writings of J. N. Darby 30: manner, took part in the same It would be, of course, absurd to say that Christ s humanity was only a body (Apollinarianism). As JND says: He took our nature that He might die Man s nature includes a human will and a human I, else there is no human personality. CHRIST S HUMANITY IS OF ITS OWN ORDER: SINLESS, IMPECCABLE, AND IN CHRIST S PERSON His humanity, it is said {by B. W. Newton}, was not sui generis. This too is confusion. The abstract word humanity means humanity and no more: and, being abstract, must be taken absolutely, according to its own meaning. But, if the writer means that in fact the state of Christ's humanity 23. See the footnote in JND s translation of this verse. Answering some questions, W. Kelly wrote: (3.) To bring about this relationship to Himself incarnation was requisite with a view to redemption. Since then the children partake, or are partakers of (6,6@4<f<06,<) blood and flesh, He Himself also similarly participated in (:,JXFP,<) the same. The former verb supposes a common share in what belonged to the children, as indeed to all men. For there is no difference in the human nature of godly and of ungodly. The latter verb means to take or get a share in anything (in this case, humanity). (4.) Likewise, in like manner, similarly (as I have rendered it), is the true force of B"D"B80F\TH. It is not correct to say that the rendering in our common Bible is not sufficiently strong. Bengel gives similiter and remarks, not that it is equivalent to but idem fere atque mox 6"J" BV<J" per omnia v. 17, c. iv. 15. The Docetae may have perverted the word to their own wicked folly; but no scholar who examines the matter can deny that B. does not go as far as *L@\TH or ÇFTH; but as Alford justly remarks, it expresses a general similitude, a likeness in the main: and so not to be pressed here, to extend to entire identity, nor on the other hand, to imply, of purpose, partial diversity; but to be taken in its wide and open sense -- that He Himself also partook, in the main, in like manner with us, of our nature. The Docetae did not believe that Christ really :,JXFP,< Jä< "ÛJä<, which words do predicate sameness in essence. It is ignorance to found this on B"D"B80F\TH, which simply asserts similarity of manner: while on the other hand, even this could not have been truthfully said, had not the Word been *@60JäH 88 N"<J"FJ46äH 88 Ð<JTH. (Cp. Phil. 2:27.) (5.) Christ took human nature most really, though not in a state identical with ours (as is more fully explained strange that it should be needed by the believer! in Heb. 4:15); but He took it to die, that through death He might destroy (annul, render void) him that has the power of death, that is, the devil, and might deliver, etc. To avail for God s glory or even for us, it was into death that grace led the Savior. There only could Satan s might be brought to nought; thus only could redemption be wrought, a ruined creation be reconciled to God, guilty souls be atoned for effectually and for ever. All this and more was done by the death of Christ, though its power be displayed in resurrection alone. All else fails to vindicate God, annul Satan, or deliver man (The Bible Treasury 6:79). 24. Collected Writings of J. N. Darby 27:343.

7 was not sui generis, it is quite wrong; for it was united to Godhead, which no one else s humanity ever was; which, as to fact, alters its whole condition. For instance, it was not only sinless, but in that condition incapable of sinning; 25 and to take it out of that condition is to take it out of Christ s person. 26 THE PERSON IS NOT CHANGED For the Person is not changed. 27 Thus, JND held that the Son took humanity into His person, yet he says that the Person is not changed. That is, He remained the Son and He remained the Word. JND did not mean by such a statement that there was no union of the divine and human in Christ. The fact is, then, by saying the Person did not change, JND did not mean that there was not something added to His Person, for he held that the Son took humanity into His Person, yet he remained the Son and the Word. The fact is that there was addition to His Person, but He remained the Son and the Word and the eternal life. That is the sense in which is meant the Person is not changed. The reader is specifically warned about the abuse of the words, the Person is not changed because FER and his followers say the person is not changed and use those words with a different, new meaning from JND; namely, they use 25. {On the other hand Jesus had no sin. Although perfectly man, every thought, feeling, and inward motion was holy in Jesus: not only not a flaw in His ways was ever seen, but not a stain in His nature. Whatever men reason or dream, He was as pure humanly as divinely; and this may serve to show us the all-importance of holding fast what men call orthodoxy as to His person. I shall yield to none in jealousy for it, and loyally maintain that it is of the substance and essence of the faith of God's elect that we should confess the immaculate purity of His humanity, just as much as the reality of His assumption of our nature. Assuredly He did take the proper manhood of His mother, but He never took manhood in the state of His mother, but as the body prepared for Him by the Holy Ghost, who expelled every taint of otherwise transmitted evil {cp. Luke 1:35}. In His mother that nature was under the taint of sin: she was fallen, as were all others naturally begotten and born in Adam's line. In Him it was not so; and, in order that it should not be so, we learn in God s word that He was not begotten in a merely natural generation, which would have perpetuated the corruption of the nature and have linked Jesus with the fall; but by the power of the Holy Ghost He and He alone was born of woman without a human father. Consequently, as the Son was necessarily pure, as pure as the Father, in His own proper divine nature, so also in the human nature which He thus received from His mother: both the divine and the human were found for ever afterwards joined in that one and the same person the Word made flesh. Thus, we may here take occasion to observe, Jesus is the true pattern of the union of man with God, God and man in one person... The Christian never has union with God, which would really be, and only is in, the Incarnation (W. Kelly, Lectures introductory to the Study of the Minor Prophets, London: Broom, pp. 214, Collected Writings of J. N. Darby 15: Synopsis 5:230 note. Also Collected Writings of J. N. Darby 25:2. So W. Kelly, F.E.R. Heterodox, p. 124 (and The Bible Treasury, New Series 4:78) it to deny the Son s taking manhood into His Person. It is well to observe how heresy changes the use and meaning of words and phrases. Thus, the reader may find words such as that the Person is not changed -- and there was no addition to His Person. That is a denial that the Son took manhood into His Person and is a fundamentally evil denial of the truth of Christ s Person. DISCUSSING THE PERSON OF CHRIST Sorry to say, there are persons who warn about discussing the Person of Christ when His Person has been under attack. Perhaps those who do this are trying to ward off the implications of fellowship with evil teaching concerning His Person. They are resisting that souls should be preserved from evil teaching. A balanced view of this matter was stated by JND: We must take care not to pretend to know all that concerns the union of humanity and divinity in the Person of the Lord. This union is inscrutable. No man knoweth the Son but the Father. Jesus grew in wisdom. What has made some Christians fall into such grave errors is, that they have wished to distinguish and explain the condition of Christ as man. We know that He was and that He is God; we know that He became man, and the witness to His true divinity is maintained, in that state of humiliation, by the inscrutability of the union. One may show that certain views detract from His glory, and from the truth of His Person; but I earnestly desire that brethren should not set to work to dogmatize as to His Person: they would assuredly fall into some error. I never saw any one do it without falling into some unintentional heresy. To show that an explanation is false, in order to preserve souls from the evil consequences of the error, and to pretend to explain the Person of the Lord, are two different things So, when JND states that the Lord had a human will and human I, was that dogmatizing (or discussing, or dissecting ) concerning Christ s Person? -- and JND is self-condemned? Hardly! Let us continue with his warnings: I have not entered into the discussions on {Henry} Craik s doctrines. I dread dissecting, if I may venture so to speak, Christ, it is not the way to honor Him. Very few will speak so as not to commit themselves; No man knoweth the Son but the Father. We may know many precious things of Him which enable us to condemn error, but nice definitions of what He was, and how He was it, human language and human thoughts are not competent to, I judge. I do condemn many things I have heard said Our precious Savior was Man, as truly as I am, as regards the simple abstract idea of humanity, but without sin, miraculously born by divine power; and more than this, He was God manifest in flesh. 28. Letters of J. N. Darby 2:310. Boldfacing is added. 29. Letters of J. N. Darby 3:262.

8 Now, having said so much, I entreat you with all my heart not to try to define and to discuss the Person of our precious Savior; you will lose the savor of Christ in your thoughts, and you will get in its place only the barrenness of the human mind in the things of Christ, and in the affections which belong to them. I have begged the brethren to refrain from this, and they are all the better for it. It is a labyrinth for man, because he works from his own resources. It is as if one were to dissect the body of one s friend, instead of delighting in his affections and his character. In the church, it is one of the worst signs I have met with. It is very sad to get into this way, very sad that this should be shown in such a light before the church of God, and before the world. I would add, that so deep is my conviction of man s incapacity in this matter, and that it is outside the teaching of the Spirit to wish to define the manner of the union of divinity and humanity in Jesus, that I am quite ready to suppose that even while desiring to avoid it, I may have fallen into it, and thus may have spoken in a mistaken way in something which I have said to you. That He was truly Man, Son of man, dependent on God as such, and without sin in that condition of dependence -- truly God in all His ineffable perfection: this I hold, I trust, dearer than life. To define everything is what I do not presume to do. No man knoweth the Son but the Father. If I find anything which weakens one or the other of these truths, or which dishonors Him who is their subject, I shall oppose it with all my might, as God may call me to do so. May God grant you to believe all which the word teaches with regard to Him -- Jesus. It is our food and sustenance to understand all which the Spirit has given us to understand, and not to seek to define that which God does not call upon us to define, but to adore on the one hand and to feed upon on the other, and to love in every way according to the grace of the Holy Spirit. 30 Since JND taught that the Lord had a human soul and a human I, did he violate what he said here and did he, in fact, seek to define that which God does not call upon us to define? Certainly not! That is among the things the Spirit has given us to believe. This is not defining, or discussing, things not revealed concerning His Person. It is a matter of a true confession of His Person as the God-man. WHAT IS THE ISSUE IN DISCUSSIONS OF THE PERSON OF CHRIST? The Confession of the True Humanity of Christ is not What is Meant by Discussing His Person. The warnings about discussing the Person of Christ has to do with speculations on the union of the two natures in one Person. Men want to understand the inscrutable, the how it can be. Thus, they use reasoning and logic to bring the union into scrutiny of the human mind. This is what has fathered the host of evil teachings concerning His Person. And this has fathered denying human personality in the Person of Christ. To insist on the Scripture teaching that Christ had a human will and/or I is not discussing Christ s Person. JND wrote: The questions you put make me feel deeply all that there is sorrowful in the walk of one whom nevertheless I love very sincerely, our friend M. G. To enter upon subtle questions as to the person of Jesus tends to wither and trouble the soul, to destroy the spirit of worship and affection, and to substitute thorny enquiries, as if the spirit of man could solve the manner in which the humanity and the divinity of Jesus were united to each other. In this sense it is said, No one knoweth the Son but the Father. It is needless to say that I have no such pretension. 31 We have seen above that he asserted the human will and the human I in Christ. To this these observations about discussing the Person of Christ may be added:... (John 14:9)... Clearly the mystery of His Person is in question; to the captious, the irreverent, the curious, a stone of stumbling in all ages, but to the humble and reverent soul a source of unfailing gladness and thanksgiving. Of course there is a sense in which we do know Christ -- most really know Him, albeit not the mystery of His Sonship. Our Lord gently reproved Phillip for not knowing Him, for not discerning that all that infinitude of moral glory was the manifestation of the Father. To know Him was to know the Father, so that this verse in John is in the fullest accord with the passage in Matthew {11:27}. But, as we know, it is the union of the divine and the human in His blessed Person that is unknowable. All manner of ingenious speculations have been exhausted in the attempt to analyze it. In vain! No such impregnable tower ever rose four-square to heaven. The would-be interpreters are ever baffled, and the burning of their own fingers is the least part of the damage. What of the wide-spread injury to the flock of Christ? Surely it had been better, instead of such unhallowed dissection, to have bowed before the mystery of godliness, or even to have taken up, may be, the words of the ancient creed, for God and Man are one Christ. Such is the incarnation. 32 Scrutinizing the Person of Christ. Scrutinizing the Person of Christ refers to the attempt to explain the union of God and man in His Person: We cannot fathom who He was. Our hearts should not go and scrutinize the Person of Christ, as though we could know it all. No human being can understand the union of God and Man in His Person -- "No man knoweth the Son but the Father." All that is revealed we may know; we may learn a great deal about Him. The Father we know: "No man knoweth 30. Letters of J. N. Darby 1:282. Boldfacing is added. 31. Collected Writings of J. N. Darby 10: R. B. Jr., The Bible Treasury 18:218.

9 the Father but the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son shall reveal him." We know Him to be holy; we know Him to be love, etc. But when I attempt to fathom the union of God and man -- no man can. We know Christ is God, and we know He is man -- perfect man, apart from sin; and if He is not God, what is He to me? What difference between Him and another man? Christ came in flesh. Every feeling that I have (save sin) He had. 33 Confessing that Christ has a human I (ego) and a human will is confessing the truth of Christ s Person, not scrutinizing the union of the two natures so as to explain it. As an example, consider again this stricture by JND: And this last statement, that Christ had no human personality, no ego {means, no I }, which is really heresy... and the mere folly of man attempting to fathom the mystery of His Person Such rejection of a human I (ego) in Christ s Person is the result of scrutinizing His Person. Looking Into the Ark. The men of Bethshemesh looked into the ark of God and God smote 70 persons (1 Sam. 6:19). Confessing the truth of Christ s humanity is not the sin of looking into the ark. What answers to looking into the ark of God is what the Monothelites as well as deniers of human personality in Christ did. Such want to explain the union of the divine and human in the Person of Christ, reducing it to what their minds could understand. Of course, it is not unexpected that such a paper as this one which is in the reader s hands will be, by some, likened to looking into the ark of God -- in an effort to put down the truth of Christ s human I (ego) and human will. It follows from this reversal of the charge (a not uncommon way of dealing with matters) that JND, quoted above, and all the persons quoted in what follows, are all like the men of Bethshemesh. Those who make such a charge must be holding evil teaching on the union of the divine and human in Christ, else why would they do such a thing? The Lord s Human Will Expressed in Gethsemene Father, if thou wilt remove this cup from me: but then, not my will, but thine be done (Luke 22:42). Here in Gethsemene we see the perfect submission of the Lord s human will to the will of the Father. His human will was a part of the perfection of His perfect humanity; He shrank from being made sin, and bearing sins in His own body on the tree, and bearing wrath. His perfection includes that He shrank from it. It was in accordance with His holiness to do so. 35 Indeed, the Son took holy humanity into His Person. Luke 1:35 expresses this: [The] Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of [the] Highest overshadow thee, wherefore the holy thing that shall be born shall be called Son of God. Son of God eternally, He must be Son of God in holy manhood also. Though become man, He remained the same Person, the Son of God. And though Godhead and manhood united in Him, there was but one Person, not two persons -- one of which was the Son of God and one of which was a man. He took holy manhood, body, soul (with a human will and human I ), and spirit, into His Person. The manhood entered into His person and there was but one Person. The finite mind, seeking to explain how this could be, falls into evil teaching, as it seeks to make this inscrutable truth comprehensible to the finite mind. We, as taught by the Spirit through the Scriptures, may apprehend that there is the unity of the two natures in Him, the human and the divine, one Person, but we cannot comprehend how this can be. Concerning the expression of His human will in Gethsemene, W. Kelly wrote: It was impossible that He who was life could desire such a death from His Father -- from God in wrath against Him. It would have been hardness, 33. Collected Writings of J. N. Darby 27:357. Boldfacing is added. 34. Collected Writings of J. N. Darby 29: W. Kelly wrote: In Him there was the absolute surrender of every thought and feeling to the will of God. There was but one apparent exception, where He prayed in His agony, Let this cup pass from me. But how could He, who ever enjoyed the unbroken sunshine of God s favor throughout His career on earth, desire to be forsaken of God? It would have been indifference and not love, it would have been to despise the blessed fellowship between the Father and Himself. Therefore was it a part of the perfectness of Christ to say, Let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not my will but thine be done. His humanity because perfect (may I say?) could not wish for that unutterable scene of wrath: but here too He was, as in all things, subject to the will of God. The cup which my Father giveth me, shall I not drink it? (In Christ Tempted and Sympathizing).

10 15 16 not love; but although He felt it perfectly according to God His Father, yet He entirely submits His human will to the Father s. Abba, Father, He says, all things are possible unto Thee. Take away this cup from Me; but not what I will, but what Thou [wilt]. He had a real soul, what is dogmatically called a reasonable soul, not a mere principle of vitality. He could not have said this, had it been true, as some have asserted, that the Divine nature in our Lord took the place of a soul. He would not have been perfect man had He not taken a soul as well as a body. Therefore could He say: Not what I will, but what Thou [wilt]. 36 In a book that appears to have had the evil teachings of F. E. Raven in view, F. W. Grant remarked: He shrank from it and could not take it as of His own will, but only as the divine will for Him. Here, surely, we have a perfect and therefore a real, human will. He is as true man as any man can be; and personally man, as such a will must prove Him. 37 He also wrote: To realize the subject of prayer is not to solve the mystery of it. It certainly gives us to see how true, while perfect, the humanity of the Lord Jesus was. In the seventh century, the words Not My will, but Thine be done were used against the Monothelites to prove the distinctness of the human from the divine will in Christ. But while we recognize their competency {of the words quoted} for such a purpose, it is for us to acquiesce in the Lord s own assurance that No one knoweth the Son but the Father, and to refrain from seeking to penetrate beyond what is ours to know. The truth of His humanity, and its personality (without which it would not have been true) we may thank God for showing us in so clear a manner; and we must hold it fast as essential to the proper Christian faith. Analysis of His inscrutable nature we should not venture upon. 38 Let us look at some remarks by J. N. Darby regarding what transpired in Gethsemene:... and without entering into it one moment as a temptation which might have for its effect in Him to awaken His own will. Such is Gethsemane; not the cup, but all the power of Satan in death and the enmity of man taking their revenge (so to speak) on God ( the reproaches of them that reproached thee fell upon me ): all perfectly and entirely felt, but brought to God in an entire submission to His will. It is the Christ -- marvelous scene! -- watching, praying, struggling in the highest degree; all the power and the weight of death pressed upon His soul by Satan, and augmented by the sense He had of what they were before God, from whose face nothing then hid Him. But He always kept His Father absolutely before His face, referring everything to the Father s will, without flinching for a moment, or trying to escape that will by giving way to His own. Thus He takes nothing from Satan or men, but all from God. 39 As regards our obedience, it is essential for the true character of our path as Christians that we should lay hold of what this obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ was. Legal obedience in us is a different thing. We have got a will of our own: this was not true of Christ. He had a will in one sense, as a man, but He said, Not my will, but thine, be done. But we have got a will of our own; it may be checked and broken down. But if the law is applied to us, it is as stopping this will, but it finds it here, and such is our notion of obedience constantly. Take a child! there is a will of its own; but when the parents will comes in, and the child yields instantly without a struggle, and either does what it is bid or ceases to do what it is forbidden, you say, This is an obedient child, and it is delightful to see such an obedient spirit. But Christ never obeyed in that way. He never had a will to do things of His own will in which God had to stop Him. It was not the character of His obedience. It is needed with us, and we all know it, if we know anything of ourselves; but it was not the character of His obedience. He could not wish for the wrath of God in the judgment of sin, and He prayed that this cup might pass from Him. But the obedience of Christ had quite another character from legal obedience. His Father s will was His motive for doing everything: Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. This is the true character of the obedience of Jesus Christ, and of ours as Christians said Therefore, as a man, not my will but thine be done. 41 This reflective self-consciousness is man s distinctive prerogative, as having a spirit. I {which resides in the soul} has the power of using the upper faculty {i.e., the spirit} to reflect on the workings of I. I reflect, but the capacity is in the spirit of man. There is, says Elihu, a spirit in man. But how was this before the fall? I mean as to will. And here I have to remark that I think will is used in two ways -- intention, the tendency of nature or I, towards something, and the determination of I to go out towards that something, and where this question is raised in a moral ground. All will is sin, because it is not obedience, i.e., is assumed independence of God, and much more. Now unfallen Adam had no such will as this. It was tested in the tree, and he ought to have said I can have no will -- I obey -- but he distrusted and willed. But in the place where God had set him, as dressing the garden and keeping it, nature was free in the sphere 36. Exposition of the Gospel of Mark, London: Race, pp. 197, 198, ed. by E. E. Whitfield, This is also found in The Bible Treasury 6:138. Boldface emphasis is added. 37. The Crowned Christ, Kilmarnock: Ritchie, p. 54, 1945 reprint. Boldfaced emphasis is added. 38. The Numerical Bible, The Gospels, p Boldfaced emphasis is added. 39. Collected Writings 29: Collected Writings 16:175; repeated in 28:175. Boldfaced emphasis is added. 41. Notes and Comments 2:256. Boldfaced emphasis is added.

11 God had given it authority in; and so as to animals. Here God had given authority, and will was in its place while the whole man was subject to God. But he used a will in the sphere of testing obedience and was lost -- Christ in the most perfect testing said Not my will but thine be done. His tendency of nature and I to escape suffering was right -- that suffering eminently so. He had, being a perfect Man, a will of nature and morally too, but no will which willed when God s will was there. This is commonly, in its grosser form, called Self-will. It is the determination of I to have its own way. 42 Every Word, Work, and Way of the Lord Jesus Had a Divine Spring Replying to an evil paper on the Lord s humanity (written by B. W. Newton) J. N. Darby wrote: Mr. N. goes beyond scripture in saying (p. 35) that To say that there was in His humanity a divine spring of thought and feeling, is to deny His real humanity. Was His humanity then without a divine spring of thought and feeling? Had he said it was not of or from His humanity, I should have nothing to say; but to say there was none in it unsettles the doctrine of Christ s person. There was the fulness of the Godhead bodily; and the divine nature was a spring of many thoughts and feelings in Him. This is not the whole truth; but to deny it is not truth. If it merely means that humanity has not in itself a divine spring, that is plain enough; it would not be humanity. I am equally aware that it will be said that it was in His person; but to separate wholly the humanity and divinity in springs of thought and feeling is dangerously overstepping scripture. Is it meant that the love and holiness of the divine nature did not produce, was not a spring of, thought and feeling in His human soul? This would be to lower Christ below a Christian. Perhaps this is what Mr. N. means in saying He was dispensationally lower than the church. If so, it is merely a roundabout road to Socinianism... To turn, then, to scripture, we are told of the sinless infirmities of human nature, and that Christ partook of them. Now, I have no doubt this has been said most innocently; but, not being scripture, we must learn in what sense it is used. Now, that Christ was truly man, in thought, feeling, and sympathy, is a truth of cardinal blessing and fundamental importance to our souls. But I have learnt, thereby, not that humanity is not real humanity, if there is a divine spring of thought and feeling in it; but that God can be the spring of thought and feeling in it, without its ceasing to be truly and really man. This is the very truth of infinite and unspeakable blessedness that I have learnt. This, in its little feeble measure, and in another and derivative way, is true of us now by grace. He who searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit. This is true in Jesus in a yet far more important and blessed way. There was once an innocent man left to himself; the spring of thought and feeling being simply man, however called on by every blessing and natural testimony of God without: we know what came of it. Then there was man whose heart alas! was the spring, from within, of evil thoughts and the dark train of acts that followed. What I see in Christ is man, where God has become the spring of thought and feeling. * And, through this wonderful mystery, in the new creation in us, all things are of God. That, if we speak of His and our humanity, is what distinguishes it... Sinless humanity, sustained in that state by Godhead, is not the same as sinful humanity left to itself. If it be said it was in the same circumstances, this is a question of fact, and to what extent? And here we have to guard against confounding relationships and circumstances. Thus deprivation of paradise is stated by Mr. N. as one thing which the blessed Lord had in common with ourselves. As to circumstances, it is quite clear it was so; but as to relationship to God -- was Christ deprived of paradise as we are as guilty outcasts from it? Clearly not. [* Did He hereby cease to be man? not at all. It is, though according to God, in man and as man these thoughts and feelings are to be found. And this extends itself to all the sorrows and the pressure of death itself upon His soul in thought. He had human feelings as to what lay upon Him and before Him, but God was the spring of His estimate of it all. Besides, the manifestation of God was in His ways. We had known man innocent in suitable circumstances; and guilt, subject to misery; but in Christ we have perfectness in relation to God in every way, in infallibly maintained communion in the midst of all the circumstances of sorrow, temptation, and death, by which He was beset, the spring of divine life in the midst of evil, so that His every thought as man was perfection before God, and perfect in that position. This was what marked His state as being down here this new thing.] 43 Thus, though Christ s death on the cross was a human death, we do not separate it from the value and glory of His Person. His sufferings, death, and bloodshedding had all the value and glory of His Person as their value and glory. This is because of the unity of the two natures in Him. Indeed, it is so preciously stated in 1 John 2:2: and he is the propitiation for our sins... Thus, the propitiation is commensurate with the value and glory of His Person. Every word, work, and way had a divine spring, and could not be human words, ways, and acts as if they were apart from the unity of the two natures. All that He did and said had a divine spring, and all was done in the power of the Spirit. There 42. Notes and Comments 2:315, 316. Boldface emphasis added. 43. Collected Writings 15: